Political Geography

Mexico

Constitution - Federal Republic

President Felipe de Jesus CALDERON Hinojosa

                China

                Constitution - Communist State

                President HU Jintao

                 India

                 Constitution - Federal Republic

               President Pranab Mukherjee

                                                        

                        Afghanistan

                        Constitution - Islamic Republic

                        President Hamid Karzai

Iran                                                                            Constitution- Theocratic Republic

Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini – Khamnei

                                        

Israel

Constitution - parliamentary democracy

President Shimon Peres

Germany

Constitution – federal republic

President – Joachim Gauck

United Kingdom

Constitution – unwritten, common law

Prime Minister David Cameron

France

Constitution – republic

President Francis Hollande

Brazil

Constitution – federal republic

President Dilma Rouseff

Venezuela

Constitution – federal republic

President Hugos Frias

Saudi Arabia

Constitution – Monarchy

King Abdallah bin Abd al – Aziz Al Saud

Questions For Test

In class today we were discussing good questions for the test that we would be taking Friday. We had to give a question and then tell us the answer to see if it would be a legit question for the test. For instance, one question was what are the three Abrahamic religions? The three Abrahamic religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Another question was what percent of India practice Hinduism and eighty percent of India are Hindu. There were a few trick questions like, is Buddhism monotheistic or polytheistic and it is neither polytheistic or monotheistic. Another one was, what was the name of the person who executed Christians but found the holy spirit and started spreading the word and changed his name. That would be Saul and once he found God he changed his name to Paul. There were a lot of good questions but I just named a few.

On Friday we learned about he different religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism  We already went over Islam and Christianity  we only had to learn about three more religions. We learned about Buddhism, the central figure is Siddhartha Gautama. It is not monotheistic or polytheistic, it doesn't have a holy book either, it has Four Noble Truths. We also learned about Hinduism  they do not claim one prophet. Also eighty percent of the people in India follow this religion. That last religion we learned about was Judaism, their sacred books are the Talmud and the Torah. They are waiting for the prophet to come to earth. Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion. After that class I learned a lot of insightful things about religions and it made me have a different prescriptive about different religions.

In class today we wrote some more notes on Cultural Geography. We got some stuff down on ethnic heritage, for example the United States and Switzerland have merged ethnic groups peacefully  Also Korea and Japan have primarily one ethnic group. Another example of ethnic heritage is in Africa where the tutsis and the hutus try to dominate each other. We also got into the religions and the five main religions are Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. We got into a big discussion about Christianity and how Jesus Christ is the central figure. We talked about what he did on the earth. The thing that separate Jesus from everybody else is that he died on the cross and rose from the dead and saved us from our sins. He also performed many more miracles on this earth  He was the only person to live a perfect life. It almost became a religion class.

Religions

Christianity was founded in Palestine around the beginning of 1 AD. It is monotheistic they only believe in one God. Yes they have a book that they follow and it is called The Holy Bible. Thirty-three percent of the world believes in the Christian faith. Jesus is the central figure for this religion because God made himself in a human form. Came on the earth and lived a perfect life and then died on the cross for our sins. This mostly takes place in the Middle East.

 The Islamic faith was founded in Mecca and Saudi Arabia about 622 BCE. They only worship one God so they are monotheistic. The book that they use as their guide is called the Qur’an. 1.3 billion People believe in the Islamic faith. Muhammad was spreading the word to people about the one and true God to a polytheistic world. The geographical Concentration is in Mecca. Buddhism was founded in the location of Northeastern India in 520 BCE.

Buddhism is a polytheistic culture. The book that Buddhist follows is called Tipitaka.  About 360 million people follow the religion Buddhism. Buddha is the central for this religion even though there are other gods. Many people from China, Korea, and Japan believe in Buddhism.  Hinduism was founded in India 1500 BCE.

 Hinduism is also a polytheistic religion. The sacred texts are Vedas, Upanishads, Sutras, and Bhagavad Gita. 900 million people believe or worship the Hindu faith. Belief about a God or gods is not the essential. People in India, United Kingdom, and the United States.

 Judaism was founded in Mesopotamia around 1300 BC. Like the Christina faith it is also monotheistic. The text that they use is Tanakh with the Talmud. 14 million people believe in Judaism. Their god is Yahweh which is their one and only God. Most of these people practice this religion in Israel, Europe and USA.  

I wasn't in class today because I went to the hospital to visit a relative.

In class today we took notes on "Cultural Geography." There are three man points in cultural geography, they are language, religion and ethnic heritage. Today we started talking about languages, today I learned that English is the world language especially for businesses. Also Spanish unites the Hispanic world. Also, Switzerland has many different languages and they still keep peace in the region. After that we got into ethnic heritages,Yugoslavia had many ethnic groups. Once they people in charged died out there was a civil war and they went to separate countries. We also talked about how diverse the United States are. The United States is known to be called a "tossed salad." Tomorrow we will get into religion and take a few notes about that.

In class today we went over the power points that we worked on yesterday.  My group did the Native Americans and we went first. We talked about how they were first people here in the Americas. They came from Asia to Alaska using the Bering Strait about twelve thousand t o seventeen thousands years ago. They were fighting to keep their land but eventually they lost it. Another group came up and did the Vikings. They were the second group to make it to North America. They didn't stay for long because it wasn't working out for them and they were having problems with the natives. Also the Europeans came to North America last and they liked what they saw and they took over the land. They brought more and more people to come. They used threes ships to get here at first and they are the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

In class we today we got our results from our test that we took Friday about the movie "God Grew Tired of Us". On the test i received a ninety percent, I only missed two problems. Other than that I was fine with the test. Then we went over the test and I fixed the problems I got wrong. After we went over the test we started talking about Columbus Day and talked about what Columbus really founded. Then we went into three groups, they were about the Native Americans, The Vikings and the Europeans. Each group has to make a power point and give information and give specific information depending what group you chose. We worked with this until the end of the class and after that class was over and we would go to our next class.

On Friday in class we took a test on "God Grew Tired of Us." Overall the test wasn't that bad, there was just a few problems I had a little trouble with. It also helped that we could use our blogs as a reference for the test. If you wrote good blogs then test was pretty easy but if you didn't you were going to have some problems. After the test class was almost over so we were just waiting for the bell to ring. I think I did pretty good on the test so I'm not to worried about it. I think that I was well prepared for it too. We are going to do something to help the people on Sudan and then after that we will get into our unit and we will work from there. That is what we are going to do Monday.

In class we were trying to cut down the foundations so we could help a certain one. It was kind of hard because the ones that we found were all pretty helpful to the people that are less fortunate in Africa. We were trying to see if John would visit the school but it is  lot of money so we were trying to see if we could do something else to help him. Also we looked at Panther's foundation to build the school in Africa. we were also trying to see if could come to the school so Mr. Schick said he would look into that. We also were looking at this foundation that john supported. There were a few more we talked about but I just wanted to name a few. All the ones we talked about today were very good and we could use anyone one of those.

In class we are taking an intuitive to do something about the stuff going on in Syria. Earlier we were looking for foundations that look safe to use. My group found a couple like the one Panther is using to build a school in his home land. Another one we found was the one John had, he was raising money too. Some other groups found places to donate money too. We also wondered if John would come to our school and speak but we would have to raise a couple thousand dollars to do so. Overall we are trying to do something that will help the people in Africa. If we all work together we can all make a difference and help the people in Syria.

Today we finally finished the movie "God Grew Tired of Us." Each person had a different outcome at the end. John Dau was pretty happy at the end of the movie. After seventeen years he finally got to see his mother again. They were both flooded with tears when they saw each other. He also went across the United States to tell people about the civil war in Syria. At the end, they even said that he is trying to build a medical clinic. He still feels like he has to give back to his homeland. Panther, gets married and goes back to Africa for a little bit. He also got a degree in Economics. Also he is trying to build a school for the kids that live where he used to be. Daniel is taking classes at a community college and is still searching for his family. The guys are just thankful they had the opportunity to come to America and all three of them are trying to take full advantage of it. They guys have been through many trials and tribulations and it's nice to see that they are trying to make their lives better for themselves and for the people in Africa.